‘Yes.’
‘They’re both looking for the same thing, aren’t they?’
‘I think so.’
‘Yes or no?’
‘Yes. Jesus, stop pointing that fucking gun at me. I’m telling you, aren’t I?’
‘What are they looking for? And don’t tell me you don’t know. I bet you spend most of your time in that house with your ear pressed against keyholes.’
‘I don’t know what it is, exactly, but it got someone haunted.’
‘Who would that be? Name names, or it’s a short ride to the local wildlife.’
‘Someone on Earth. I think it was something someone sent back. As a present, a souvenir.’
‘Something from Site 326.’
‘I suppose so. Danny, Mr Drury, he went to check it out. But I don’t think he found anything.’
‘And how did he hear about it?’
‘They have contacts back home. Bent coppers, clerks, IT people. Not Mr Drury, the people he works for.’
‘The McBride family.’
‘They’re an old firm. One of the best.’
Vic had a sudden epiphany. He said, ‘They sent people here, didn’t they? The McBride family. They sent people to look for this thing when Drury couldn’t find it. Three people, smuggled up here in a shipping container. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear anything about that.’
‘Not about any shipping container.’
‘What, then?
Little Dave’s Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, and he looked away.
‘We’ve come this far,’ Vic said. ‘You know you have to go the distance.’
‘As long as you understand I didn’t have nothing to do with it.’
‘As long as you didn’t, that won’t be a problem.’
‘And this is just between you and me. I won’t stand up in court for it.’
‘Have I read you your rights? Is your lawyer present? We’re just having a little chat, completely off the record.’
‘Because if anyone finds out I told you this, I’m dead.’
‘Anything you tell me here, it’s as my confidential informant. Strictly between you and me.’
‘You swear?’
‘What are we, kids in a playground? Just tell me, or you’re walking home.’
‘All it was, Mr Drury heard that two police were coming up on the shuttle. Something to do with this artefact, back on Earth. The one that got someone haunted.’
‘Let me guess. Two police by the names Redway and Parsons.’
‘They came here to look for the source of the artefact. Mr Drury was having them followed. He wanted to find out who they were seeing here, where they were going. He thought they might cause him all kinds of inconvenience if they got too interested in his business.’
‘Because this artefact had been found in that site in Idunn’s Valley.’
‘If you know all this, why are you asking me?’
‘Did Redway and Parsons get too close to Drury’s business? Is that why he ambushed them?’
‘That wasn’t Mr Drury,’ Little Dave said. ‘All he was doing was having them followed. Discreet like. They went out to the shuttle terminal and someone jumped them. One went down, the other took off, disappeared…Mr Drury had his street crews looking for him, and then I suppose he must have heard he was out in Idunn’s Valley.’
‘And Drury and his goons went after him,’ Vic said, thinking of the gun battle out at Winnetou.
‘I wouldn’t know about that, would I?’
‘And I don’t suppose you know who killed John Redway, either.’
‘I heard it was Mr McBride, but I couldn’t swear to it. I suppose he had contacts too.’
‘I suppose he did. What about the three people in the shipping container?’
‘I don’t know anything about them, Mr Gayle. On my mother’s life I don’t.’
They went over it again, but either Little Dave really didn’t know anything else, or he had given up all he was willing to give up. Vic believed it was the former: Drury probably didn’t trust Little Dave with anything important.
Vic put his Colt away and said, ‘One more thing. Tell me about the ray gun.’
‘The what?’
Little Dave trying to look as innocent as a schoolboy.
Vic said, ‘The thing Cal McBride used to scramble the brains of people he didn’t like.’
‘Oh, that.’
‘Yes, that. Who has it now? McBride or Drury?’
‘Mr Drury turned the house upside down when he took over, looking for business records, all kinds of shit. And he didn’t find everything he was looking for. Mr McBride knew he was going down, and he squirrelled stuff away before he did.’
‘Is that your way of telling me McBride has it?’
‘All I know is that Mr Drury doesn’t. So,’ Little Dave said, ‘what about me?’
‘What about you?’
‘What do I get for being your confidential informant?’
‘I’ll give you a pass on this, and some advice, too. Think long and hard about the course of your life, and start making some changes.’
‘What else is someone like me supposed to do?’ Little Dave said. Now he thought this was over, he’d regained something of his confidence. Probably believing that he’d got away with something, because that was how people like him justified what they did. ‘First thing they do when you arrive here is shove you in a camp, expect you to do work for free. I thought, fuck that, and took off. But you need an ID card to get work, and you can’t get an ID card until you’ve finished working for the city. What choice did I have?’
‘You should have done your piece in the Orientation Camp, like everyone else,’ Vic said. ‘Contribute something to the community, help build this new world, and learn something about it.’
‘I was never cut out for that shit. Too much like school. I got out of that when I was thirteen, and never looked back.’
‘And how’s that working out for you?’
Little Dave didn’t reply.
‘What I want you to do now,’ Vic said, ‘is clasp your hands behind your head and fix your eyes on the horizon. No, don’t fucking look at me. At the horizon. And don’t you dare turn around.’
Little Dave protested, but did as he was told. Vic got in the car, saw in the side mirror Little Dave look around when he started the motor. Little Dave running after the car as Vic floored it, dwindling in the red dust. At the junction with the road, the Ford Victory parked there flashed its headlights. Vic returned the signal and drove past, turning towards the city and the airport. Alain and Maria would pick up Little Dave and take him in for questioning, put his story on the record. Meanwhile, Vic had a flight to catch, and some hard questions to ask the police in Idunn’s Valley.
33. Anomalous Patterns Of Brain Activity
France | 12–18 July
‘I can’t tell you where I’m going or what I need to do,’ Chloe said. ‘But I promise that you’ll be the first to hear everything when I come back. Swear you won’t write it up until then. Until this is finished, one way or another.’
‘I’m already writing it up,’ Gail Ann said. ‘But if you think it’ll put you in danger, I won’t show it to anyone just yet.’
‘I was thinking of Fahad and Rana,’ Chloe said. ‘And you, too.’
She was using a throwaway phone that one of Ada Morange’s people had given her. Standing amongst gnarled apple trees in the old orchard, looking south. The meadow with its mown airstrip, a file of poplars marking the course of a small river, a patchwork of fields and woods stretching away towards the Mangala shuttle. A huge alien spaceship thumbprinted against the blue summer sky.
She’d already had a painful conversation with Neil, telling him that she had to go away for a while, promising that she would explain everything as soon as she could. She’d also had a brief chat with Rosa Jenners, who said that one of her regulars had told her a story about a scout, based in Rome, who was pointed towards breakouts by pictures of nearby churches sent via an anonymising network, and like Eddie Ackroyd was paid for his work in shellcoin.